First, the good news... The frame got finished about two weeks ago. :) Here's a picture. It impressed many people, including my father, who was extremely surprised at his own reaction. He wasn't the only one - Benita was excited when she saw it too, and said she 'never thought it would look this cool'.I took them both as compliments to keep peace in the family. Anyway, this is what the completed frame looks like:
Now, the not-so-good news: the hobbit house has been doomed to gazebo-ship. I am extremely unimpressed. Thanks to those lovely floods out westward this spring, nobody produced any straw, so the price of it here went through the roof. I'm not sure what it costs for a little rectangular bale out there (14'' x 18'' x 36'') but what I found here was $2.85 per bale and an extra dollar per bale for delivery (last year's stock, no less.) And I needed around 270 to insulate walls, floor, and roof. And seeing as our super-compassionate tuition prices already put me underwater, I didn't think an extra $1000 below was going to help me out any. So, no straw. I'm still not sure if I made the right choice. :(
I have since discovered that straw is the backbone of a hobbit house. I tried quite a few workarounds, which all led to frustration and happy mosquitoes. My backup plan was to use chicken wire, and then use that as a form to build adobe-style walls from clay and sand (originally this would have been a plaster/render to be stuck on the straw bales). The chicken wire had the texture, but the clay mixture was so heavy the wire just bent and dropped it off. This is about the most mind-blowingly frustrating thing - except for the wire itself, which goes everywhere you don't want it to and stabs you in the fingers. Long story short, I have about one square foot of properly hardened wall. The rest is just chicken wire, so for a while it looked kind of like a big cage.
In the end, I gave up on winterizing it. That was really disappointing, but at least it makes an awesome summer house sort of thing.I intend to spend a lot of time in there this fall. I built a bench/seat/low shelf thing into the north wall, and I'm confident it would support as many people as you could physically get standing on it at one time. This is what it looked like halfway through construction:
Oh, and I finished the floor too, by the way. It's not an insulated one, of course - it's only about an inch off the ground, just enough for water to pass through. I expect it to be wet during the spring melt - it's more of a deck floor than a house floor now and the adapted plan for water is that it will flow down the walls, under the floor, and out. I don't know if that's sound reasoning but it's done, good or not.
The roof is waterproof to the point that it sends water down to the outside walls and keeps the main floor dry. As long as we don't get a driving storm that will be good enough. The skylight is made of vapour barrier and has a space for smoke to escape without letting water in. And the reason for this is a 'removable' fire pit I have made. :)It's a chunk of removable flooring with a clay basin scooped out beneath, complete with bricks to form an edge for it and a wire dome to catch sparks. When not in use, everything goes in the pit, and the bricks standing on end support the floor over it. I'm quite pleased with that. With the furniture I have in there (the shelf and an awesome twisty log bench), I could seat five people comfortably, and there is plenty of room to bring in more chairs and such. That's another benefit of not having solid walls - a lot more roomy inside, and a Very open-concept sort of feel. :)
Besides that, there is also a hammock and a homemade table for furniture, and some me-style home decorating - a shield and machete, a bow with no-nonsense arrows in case I get an unwelcome visitor, an inuksuk that has an unfortunate habit of collapsing, a wood flute, a basket of stones and shells, and a scroll of birch bark that I haven't quite decided what to do with yet.
So this is what my hobbit gazebo looks like now. I'm actually pretty pleased with the way it turned out, in spite of what it was originally intended to become.
I know I've missed some stuff in here. I don't have an up-to-date picture of the interior, so I'll try and get one or two of those up. This is probably the last full entry I'll post regarding the blog, seeing as school starts on monday and my writing ethic wasn't that awesome when I didn't have anything bookish to do all summer. So, that being said, anything that you're curious about (this also includes random passers-by, not just my cousins), post a question or comment and I'll try to answer it in timely fashion!
